RAOGK – Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness — #Genealogy

by C. Michael Eliasz-Solomon

This Passover / Easter weekend seems a good time as any to reflect on our family genealogy.

I know (or at least I think) that the website RAOGK/Random-Acts-Of-Genealogical-Kindness went defunct and that heirs/friends of the original website owner were trying to revive this website of genealogical service to others. I hope it does get a new life.

But even if it does not, we can still engage in RAOGK. Genealogy is the original collaborative / crowd sourced research field. For years, I have volunteered and also been the benefactor of other volunteers who have bestowed their time/efforts for a greater good. It is one of the reasons, I treasure genealogy as a past time, because of the general kindness of our fellow researchers who also share a passion for research, history, genealogy and family and a fondness for others who also engage in genealogy.

As my previous blog article chronicled, Steve Kalemkiewicz did his part this Holy Week. He went to the Detroit Public Library and did just a bit more research than just what he needed to do for himself. As a result we all have 14 new names that may benefit our research.

On Good Friday, I was able to get back to Holy Trinity Cemetery (Phoenixville) and take about 70 pictures of headstones. This I sent off to the PGSCT&NE for their cemetery databases. It should yield a good 100-140 new names for their databases. Holy Trinity is a mostly Polish cemetery, in fact its name on the two Gate Posts is written in Polish on one and English on the other. I thank Jonathan Shea and the others at PGSCT&NE who collect and post this info to their website.

As a side note, I’d like to mention that the PGSCT&NE is putting on a free seminar for researching your Slavic Roots. You can register for this April 28th seminar, by calling 215-360-3422. The seats are limited and You Need to pre-register. This is another RAOGK.

Hi … just want to let you know that there’s a RAOGK wiki … dedicated to Bridgett’s memory … that I created out of the utmost respect for what Bridgette started.

It has the same ease of use as the old site … and more …

While RAOGK is offline, it’s a collaborative environment that allows researchers and volunteers to connect.
The site needs the volunteers to find the site and “reup” by providing their email address, state/county, and description of service. (I’ll do the rest; however, there is a “do-it-yourself” option, with instructions on the wiki.)

The site is: raogk.wikia.com

It’s sad the RAOGK site has been down for nearly nine months now. At least the wiki is a viable workaround until RAOGK comes back.